She didn't bother opening the sliding window to take the lawman's order. She knew he and the deputy would come on in the back room where a long table served as a meeting place for the regulars.

"I'd better put their burgers on, they'll be hungry." Louida prided herself on being the older, more practical sister. She turned toward the grill.

"I don't know, May cautioned her sister. "They mightn't be in the mood. Will looked pretty green. That body musta been something."

"No body's a pleasure, 'specially one that's been sittin' awhile," Alice Chester said.

Louida nodded at the old woman' wisdom.

Miss Alice sat perched on a bar stool next to the meat freezer where she could keep an eye on things.

"Y'all want your usual?" May asked doubtfully as the two men tramped through the back door. Calvin Haskel was followed by his deputy, Will Seagal.

"Just coffee for me," Cal said. The other man nodded and eased himself wearily into a high-backed wooden chair at the long table.

Miss Alice waved at the men. "Got another dead un up there at Pine Hollow." It wasn't a question.

The sheriff raised an eyebrow at her. "We got a body in strange shape, but I didn't know it was common knowledge already."

"Word doesn't have far to travel in a small town," she told him.

"That's a fact, Miss Alice," the sheriff said.

"What'd it look like?" May said, setting a cup of coffee in front of Will and dropping into the seat across from him.

"It looked like one of them squirrels out of Cal's stew pot!" Will exclaimed.

"Lord, Almighty!" May said.

Louida raised an eyebrow at the sheriff. Cal was always slower to talk than Will, but he made more sense.

"I went to Viet Nam," Calvin said finally. "I've seen a lotta sights. But that man was boiled alive. I've never seen nothing like that in my life, the flesh was so tender it was falling off the bones!"

"Calvin Haskel, you got a poor memory for a young man."

The sheriff looked at the old woman. "Well, shore it up, Miss Alice. If it ain't knowed by you, it ain't fit to be knowed."

"Hell, I got a customer at the counter," Louida grumbled. "Don't you tell anymore till I get back, you hear?"

"You were saying, Miss Alice?" Cal asked, when Louida returned to the chair beside him.

The old woman shook a bony finger at him. "I hadn't said nothing yet. Just don't you rush me.

"There ain't no mystery about that dead un up there. Your Granddaddy and your Pa seen this a'fore. Yer Granddaddy even took you up to Pine Hollow to see the body. Yer Ma squalled the whole time that it'd put yer mind over. Hell, you don't even remember it."

"Pine Hollow, that's the same place this one -- "

"It's 'xactly the same place, cause he uz using' the same still, making the same shine. That red stuff. Looks like fine aged whiskey. But it ain't aged, it runs red right outa the worm- pipe."

"There's been some whiskey like that floating around the market lately," the deputy said.

"You got any left?" Cal asked with a straight face.

Will nodded, then blushed.

"Well, don't drink no more of it. We may need it for evidence." Cal sighed. "Boy, don't you know better than to buy from short- term operations? Ask me out of uniform and I'll give you the names of the reliable bootleggers."

"Oh, I know the reliable ones, sheriff. I just figure it being illegal un all, it's up to us to do quality control. I buy whatever's on the market. About a year ago I spread the word that you and I'd shut down anyone making popskull, but we'd leave 'em alone as long as they kept it healthy -- and kept the prices reasonable.

"Quality's up, sheriff," Will added helpfully.

Cal sighed, again. He had to give the deputy credit, he wasn't lacking in self-motivation.

"The moonshiners I know use a shot gun or a torch to put their rivals out of business. I never knew one to cook a man to death. What's the red whiskey got to do with the dead body?" he asked Miss Alice.

"That red whisky comes 'bout every 20 years. First appeared round 1931, during the Depression. You may a been too young to remember it in '52, but you shoulda had half a brain in '71."

"I was away at the war then, Miss Alice. Don't remember my folks writing anything about it."

"Probably figured you had enough news of the dead. But mark my words, Calvin Haskel, when the red whiskey comes, the dead body alwus follows."

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